


Mama

by whittler_of_words



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Baby Signless, Gen, Mama Rosa, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Signless remembered a bit about his life as Kankri when he was dead? Kankri knew about the Signless, how he died. Maybe the Signless knew a bit more about how things would turn out than he should have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mama

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.

“Mama!” he says, and you still your hands where they work at the seams of a dress. He smiles up at you with shining wriggler-grey eyes.

“What did you say, little one?” You pick him up from under his arms, careful to avoid the grub scars and the sensitive gills his mutation have provided him with, and place him on your lap. 

“Mama!” He smacks his palms lightly on your cheeks, not quite soft enough to be a pap but the sentiment still there all the same. The corners of his eyes crinkle up in glee. He giggles a high pealing laugh and you can’t help but return his wide smile. “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

“What are you talking about, dear?” He continues papping your face insistently, repeating the phrase, and after a few moments you think you understand. “Is that me? Am I Mama?”

“Es!” He’s still so young, the words half formed and unsure in his mouth. You find it incredibly adorable. “Mama, Mama.”

“What does that mean?” He scrunches up his eyebrows, his forehead creasing and giving him a look of consternation.

“Mama mean uv. Mama uv!” 

“‘Uv’? Did you mean glove?” He shakes his head. “Shove?”

“No!”

“Dove?”

“No, no!” He sounds surprisingly distressed, for such a game over a make-believe word. He smacks your face a bit harder. You’re about to scold him for it when he meets your eyes with such an un-wriggler like seriousness that it stops you short. “Mama. _Love_.”

“Love?”

“Es.” He draws his arms around your neck as you mouth the strange word to yourself again. Before you can ask what the word means he buries his face into the crook of your neck and says, pointedly, “ _Mama_.” He says it as if that’s all the explanation you need. As if that’s the solution to every problem you could ever face. You hold him closer to you as he tightens his grip around your neck.

He doesn’t often come to you for hugs, not as often as he used to. Perhaps he had another nightmare. You stroke his back, waiting for him to speak first.

“Mama,” he says a little more quietly, and when he looks up at you he has a look of innocent curiosity written into the tilt of his mouth. The word sounds like the beginning of a question, so you wait a few moments for him to speak again, humming your attention. “Mama, what this?”

“What’s what, dear?” He makes a “hold on” sort of noise, reaching over to draw something in the dirt. The mess of his hair that you so despair of blocks your view of what he’s doing. You don’t have to wait long. 

“This!”

You puzzle over the clumsy drawing in the sand. It’s simple in design, something you might think of as a Sign if you had seen it before. It’s unfamiliar to you, though, and during your time as a tender of the Mother Grub you had seen every Sign under the sun.

Kankri looks at the lopsided sixty-nine drawn into the sand with a deeply solemn expression on his face. It’s not the way a wriggler his age should ever have to look at something. You smooth out the wrinkle in his forehead with a kiss.

“Did you have another dream?”

“Mm.” He frowns, throwing a glance back at his drawing before burying his face into your neck again. “Don’ like it.” 

He’s like a vice, clutching at your waist as hard as his little arms can manage. You sigh, although it’s one born more from worry than exasperation. Kankri has not come to you like this for a long time, nor has he reacted to anything in his dreams so negatively. You erase all evidence of the strange symbol with a foot.

It’s probably nothing. You’re sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by both Before I Sleep and Paper's newest lyricstuck. Damn you both.


End file.
